Heaven.

The sky is pink.

I'm in love with Poison.

And for Starlight's sake, someone needs to slap me in the face.

It's easy to forget your priorities when you're tired and hurt. I know that now, but Ceres' accusation still stings.

 I draw up a shaky breath. The street is all but empty beneath me. Cut with scraggly cracks, filled with black tar, and framed with broken, brown trees. It's my priority to kill Owl, I tell myself, remind myself. Save my friends. That's what matters.

Poison twitches. He's heavier than he looks, all the wing mass making him dead weight in my rubbery arms. Beautiful guy. Tall, strong, delicate-featured. There's something about him that feels dollish, more porcelain and lace than bone and flesh. The smell of him lingers on my skin, and it's divine. Musky and sweet, all in the same drag.

And this is how I know my head isn't mine. Maybe it was a bad idea, asking him to pull me under his influence before a big battle. Scratch that—it was a bad idea, plain and simple. But I'd rather think about my new eternal love for Poison than anything else. Less distracting than Gats, than a new home, then my status as prisoner.

"I cannot believe this." Jaylin clenches Natalie's shoulder as she flies up to my side. As for what she's not believing, I have no idea. Me and Poison, or the sky, maybe? It's gone a soft sort of violet, darker purple churning up ahead on the horizon. Sirens wail, but only from behind us, in Old Newport. Ahead, where the city thickens with sprawling skyscrapers, it's silent. I strain my super-senses, but I only hear a crackling hum. Something like electricity, hissing on a scale I've never heard before that burns my ears and scalds through my skin. The sky pools with a deep purple. And to me, it spells trouble.

"Does anyone know what that is?" I ask. Poison shifts, curling an arm around my neck and shoulders. My stomach flips. His goofy smile makes me go all gooey inside seventh-grade-crush mode. It makes me want to pummel myself.

"Dunno." He looks up, the light catching his eyes. It makes them glow like a cat's. "A doomsday device. Like a portal in the sky from the movies and stuff." His smirk makes my focus fizzle.

I'll spare you my thought processes for the most part, but so you know what I'm dealing with:

He's perfect. Does he know just how perfect he is? A paragon. A freaking paragon of beauty. Of strength. Who do I think I am, holding him? He's too beautiful to be touched. I hope he loves me. How can I deserve his love?

This. This is my brain. My disgusting, unliberated mush of a brain.

My heartbeat pounds in my ears. The speed and altitude of my flight makes my ears pop and I crook myself flat on the breeze, a hot sweat pooling through the thin cotton of my shirt.

Thoughts like these loop in the back of my head, now as natural to me as my own breathing. Learning to balance the voices in my mins is a scary sort of soothing, and though I know I won't be able to keep up forever, that's not important now.

"Doubtful, Katris." His name, though foreign, makes my lips tingle. "Any other suggestions?"

"Can't believe it," says Jaylin again, "just can't believe it."

"Little girl!" Fallout shouts. I glance back. I've almost forgotten about him. His hair whips back in his flight, his thick eyebrows snapped together and his teeth bared. His entire face is red. And though normally a supervillain's wrath is something to fear, I've stopped thinking of him as a supervillain. To my mind, he's become The World's Worst Chaperone On Our Field Trip to Hell. And who can blame him? Poison, Jaylin, me, Nat, we aren't the most normal kids. If I had to supervise us, I'd sip imaginary whiskey out of my imaginary #1 Dad cup and watch the world burn. "If you say that one more time I swear on Tauras's ghost I'll have you all shot!"

Jay falls silent. I toss a look over my shoulder and find her wide-eyed and pale. Natalie pats her with a free hand, cuddling Kepler with the other. The girl carries the beast like a terrier, its face pressed against her chest and its hind legs curled up limp against her ribcage.

"Kepler," Nat says, blowing a wisp of hair out of her face. "What an odd name."

"Tell you what." I squint at the swirl of purple above. The words come out in a gush, something to take my mind off the crackling abyss ahead. The heat draws blood to my face and an icy trickle of sweat. "If Angel dies, you can keep her and rename her whatever you like."

Natalie mulls this over in the silence of our flight. "Angels don't die. They fall."

A prick of pressure eases in my chest. Though the thought of Angelos "falling" isn't a comforting one, it's better than thinking of him as dead.

"Great. She makes metaphors." Poison shifts, bracing a hand against my shoulder. His touch makes me shiver.

"I've seen this before," Fallout says, his tone harsher now. The clump of us has just skimmed over a block of old-city buildings, the roofs bashed in from what I suppose were old super fights. They're all empty. Up here, you can just make out glimpses of torn couches and moldy sinks. The smoothness of his voice suddenly cracks, clear without the usual flight winds. "We need to land. Now."

The sky cracks. Waves of purple come crashing down, stinging my neck, back, and heels. I'm knocked out of my flight, rocketing downward, the blood surging to my brains. Dazzling purple streaks tighten into strings. They lash into a grid on the horizon like a net, curling down from every direction. The heat intensifies in my body, in my blood, frying me from the inside. Natalie, Jaylin, and even Poison scream while Fallout cusses much too softly for a man plummeting to his technical death.

All my energy rises into my shoulders and core, my legs kicking for a sort of manual propulsion. Nothing. I curl my entire body around Poison, my shoulders flexed back to cushion the fall.

I know there's still some of me left in my body, because my last thought before I hit is that I need to protect him.

***

I think my guts explode on impact, but otherwise, I'm good.

At first, I don't know where I am. Brown slats dangle above my head, purple sky peeking through a craggly hole. Around me, the papered walls are splashed brown with water damage, pink posie pattern faded with age. The air is filled with the scent of decay and the tile is pink with fungus, cracks filled with mold. Home, sweet home.

I'm still holding Poison, his breath hot on my cheek. His wrist is bent the wrong way, his arm looped so tightly under my arms I sputter. Memories wash back in a flood and I snap my head up. There's a couch a little to the right of me, most of the corduroy fabric stripped but some of the springs intact. Natalie lies flat on it, Kepler on her chest. The wolf thumps her tail and she licks Natalie on the face, jaws so near the girl's throat I tense. A sluggish sensation courses my bod, the bones in my back and neck sagging like heavy liquid. All the weight's in my stomach and thighs, an airy hole in my chest. I can feel movement inside me, things shifting back into place. I think I'm going to throw up. "Nat, Jay, Poison, how are you feeling?"

Fallout clears his throat behind me. I ignore him.

"Well," Nat says, pushing Kepler off her. The wolf settles by her ankles, resigning itself to licking the tufts of fur between its fleshy pads. "I saw the couch through the hole in the roof and kind of had to throw myself at it. My back hurts. It might be bleeding from the coils, but Kep and I are okay."

I nod at her. If I had thought, kept calm, I might've spotted the couch. But I can't help a pinch of pride for her thinking so quickly. That wolf owes her its life, and if her powers are as weak as I think they are, then she owes her life to her quick thinking, too. A pang stabs at my stomach, sharp and unyielding. Poison can take care of himself. The girl is my responsibility, and I failed her.

Twice.

"You did good," I say, pushing a fold of sagging skin back in place by my elbow. The more I'm hurt, the stronger I'm supposed to become. At full power, my goopy insides will take a couple of minutes to harden back up. And thanks to Jaylin, I'm at full power. "Very smart of you. Take a breather, you deserve it."

Natalie sits up. Her eyes glow in her pale face like fireflies. She breaks into a big smile and an even bigger salute. "Yes, sir!"

"Pois—Katris?"

His lashes flutter, eyes flitting open. They're a burning shade of blue and suddenly, Nat, Jay, Fallout, and even the boys feel distant. Compared to the heat of him, nothing seems to matter. My heart beating so hard it's hard to focus on anything else.

He's lying on top of me, and he smiles slowly. "I'm alright, thanks to you."

His skin, hot. His smell, musky sweet, the smokiness faraway. The blood and sweat feel far now, and I want to lie with him forever, taking in his touch and the heat of his skin. I shudder and shake my head, pushing him off me as easily as Nat pushed away Kepler. He stretches his arms over his head like a cat, a serene look drawn over his face like a mask. He's peaceful now, and it's unnatural to see, him usually so needy and angry and sad. But he's placated now, now that he has what he wants.

Me.

I push the thought away with a shot of pain through my clicking chest at the thought of what I've down. It's in the same vein of Ariel shutting her eyes and signing away her voice for a pair of lousy legs and a chance at a man with eyes as equally blue and pretty as Poison's. Bile rises in my throat. The spell is setting in hard.

And I really am a moron. "Jaylin?" I make my voice smooth. If I show how shaken I am, then I'll shake the rest of my party, too.

"Ugh..."

"She's fine." Fallout grunts. "I had to catch her. Didn't know if she was weakened by Angelos or not." I turn. He holds her up by the collar of her sweater, her face chalky white, hair wild and tangled with sweat. Dangling, she looks as helpless as a kitten, snatched up by the scruff of its neck. Fallout sets her down so lightly I can barely make out the creak of floorboard under her tennis shoes.

I run my hands through my hair, feeling the knots in my curls. Another setback, more time wasted on our mission to stop Owl and her plans. I make a list in my head.

Poison: Weakened. Can tell because he was knocked out in the fall, and I'm the one who took the impact.

Jaylin: Also weakened. Currently, a poor flier, though I doubt that matters now.

Natalie: Smart, but most likely weak with her powers to begin with, since I had to rescue her back at that plaza with the Snare men.

Fallout: Full strength. Can control fire, but loses his mind in the process.

Me: Full strength, but distracted.

I draw in a breath. Okay. Not great, but could be worse. "Sweetie," I say with the softest voice I can muster. Nat looks up. Her mask is knocked up and there are smudges of black under her eyes. "You wouldn't still have that sickle with you by any chance?"

She lowers her eyes to her hands. "I dropped it when the villain grabbed me."

"Right. Anyone would." I want to punch myself because she sags over now, deflated. Superheroes usually work in teams, and they usually have leaders. That's what all the books say, that and the modern era of supers suck compared to Nebula and her awesome team. That us loner heroes don't have a chance against organized villains, and we're just lucky some super-powered narcist hasn't come along to enslave us all for kicks.

I guess those authors are having one long laugh-fest over smokes and cocktails. Me? I'm about to tear my hair out one premature white strand at a time. Nebula did this. She led a whole group of arguably insane heroes for forty-seven years. Then she died, and the heroes lost.

I braid back my hair. Wish I had the shield of my helmet to clean, something to take my mind off the aching in my chest, how woefully inadequate we are. We don't even have clean costumes. But what matters is that we're here, despite the odds, despite everything in the natural world trying to kill us. This isn't a disaster flick. We aren't running and we aren't fighting to stay alive. We're fighting back to save the world.

Damn it, we're going to be heroes. "Jaylin, do you have the whip?"

She smoothes back her hair and unwinds the weapon from her belt loop. It's long and sinewy, shimmering in the cool, open light of the broken ceiling. Each notch in it makes me shudder. In Jaylin's hands, the whip seems that much more dangerous, that much crueler. Jaylin eyes me with a glare.

"What? Did you think I'd lose it?" She snaps it and it cracks across the floor. Poison flings himself to his feet, and I scramble to meet him. Want to be pressed against his body. The way he draws me makes me sick.

Note to self: If you're gonna burn bridges, do them after you take out the psycho planning world domination. This is the last time I put my boyfriend issues before saving the world. "Okay," I say. I begin to pace, my muscles gelled back together and pulsing with a new nervous energy, but as soon as my sneakers hit the floor, Poison grabs my arm.

"Hey, hey." His voice is beautiful, low and breathy and soft. "Relax." He smiles down at me, trapping my voice in my throat. Every part of me wants to cling to him. Every part of me wants to press my head against his shoulder and ease into the closest thing to a nap I can without dying. The only thread that pulls me away from him is my duty. I want to curl up with Poison, but I need to save my city.

"Not now." I snap my hands behind my back. "So we have a whip. None of us can fly, with whatever's out there. We're going to have hitchhiked. Fallout, you said you saw this purple stuff before. What is it?"

Fallout's back is turned, his black shirt and jacket thrown on the floor. He doesn't even look at me, and that's a good thing since I'd hate him to see me staring. His black wings curve into each other, thick with lush, all downy feathers at the blades. The tips are brittle and gray, holes punched where they end. Through the thin fabric of his tee shirt, the white left of old scars bleeds through. Thick scars so straight they look like they were drawn with a ruler edge run parallel to his spine, wrought across the whole of his back. 'X's show just below the tips of his wings and just above his blades. Small nicks and ropey lash marks are drawn in the curve of a grin a little lower.

It makes me cover my mouth to hide a gasp.

Twitches race up and down his wings, the middles bound up with layer upon layer of crisp white bandage. Fallout unravels the bandages, whistling a tune sweet and sad in the same. It's familiar in a way I can't place and it's irksome. He wraps the bandage around his knuckles, the wings twitch and twitch, starting to give me a headache.

He shrugs. "They didn't graft them on right. They don't mesh with my nervous system like they're supposed to, so they jolt at every electrical impulse. I have to bind 'em up real tight so people don't notice.. It makes them nervous."

He says this whole spiel while staring up at the hole in the ceiling. My heart beats a little faster at the thought of someone grafting wings on the villain. I did a lot of research on Fallout, but I never learned of the twitching. Of his scars. My throat goes dry. "Who's 'they?'"

He turns around very slowly, one eyebrow arched. His eyes flash, as if he's insulted I don't know who caused his plight. "You call yourself a superhero?" He curls his lip in disgust. "Get a history book."

I cross my arms. "If you haven't noticed, we have a supervillain to stop."

He picks his shirt off the ground, holds it up to the light, and squints. I don't even try to guess what he's doing. "Outside," he says, eyes flicking back and forth like he's speed-reading, "there's a barrier. Purple Auras control energy, and that means they can put up force fields. Luna did, thinking to keep us inside the city so the US government didn't get p.o.'ed." He shakes his head and brings the shirt to his mouth. His teeth flash and I watch, mesmerized, as he rips two long holes into the fabric. "Fatal mistake." He shakes the shirt and slides it back over his shoulders. His wings jerk through the new slits.

"Can we go outside?" I ask.

Natalie climbs up the arm of the couch and looks out a shattered window. The air is hot and dead still. The atmosphere hums and crackles like live embers. I suppress a shudder, ignoring the pique of my heart when Poison reaches for my shoulder. If he cared about Starlight at all, he'd wait.

Fallout turns and squints at the moldy cross that once held up glass panes. "We should, but whoever has it up clearly doesn't know what they're doing. Better cover up in case of burns."

He picks up his jacket it throws at me. It drapes over my face and head, smelling remarkably clean, if a little ashy. I pluck it off and throw it at Jaylin.

"She needs it more than I do," I say when Fallout glares. "I'll heal faster. And Nat's staying here."

Jay huffs, but I think she's too scared to contradict me when I have Fallout's attention.

"No way." Nat whips around, arms over her chest, fixing me with the dark, sunken scowl only Jaylin should posses. I flinch. She must've picked up from her while I was knocked up on mind-numbing agony. "That lady tried to kill me—"

"Exactly. And she's going to do it again. So Kepler stays here to protect you and we'll be back in a jiff, okay sweetheart?" I offer my hand to the wolf and it snuffs at my wrists. Her nose is wet and cold, her pelt so fluffy it's awful easy to forget her teeth. I give her a pat. If Angel trusts the friendly animal, I can too.

Fallout shakes his head again. "If you won't protect yourself, Heaven, then stay here."

I feel myself bristle. "I don't have to listen to you." I'm sick of adults telling me what to do when I'm figuring everything out. They think they know so much better when they're more irrational than Angel's fear of heights. And he has wings. "I can heal from burns, and I can run fast enough that I won't get burned anyway.

He frowns, and I frown back, my skin prickling from Poison's eyes watching on in wonder. Finally, as another wasted minute ticks by, Fallout sighs. "I'd rather you just stay here where you won't get hurt."

"You were going to let me die."

He shrugs. A hot rage bubbles up inside me. How can he pretend to care? And if he's going to pretend to care, why can't he waste the energy one his real son instead of me? I toss a look at the window, at the glimmering buildings off in my peripherals. I don't want his pity and I don't want his protection.

The book-writers were right, us loners aren't equipped for the organized big and bads, but it sure as hell beats this. And frankly, if I want to get beat up, I can get beat up alone.

He's still glaring at me, but at this point, I don't care what he or the rest of them think. I spin on the toes of my shoes, my arms flexed in and arch over my head like a ballerina. The door is cricked off the side, the paint chipped where the mold begins to grow.

The morning before, I was running away from my troubles. Today, I'm running toward them.

Fallout lunges toward me from behind, but he's too late. Even the brush of Poison's warm fingertips won't keep me.

I bolt for the door and I don't look back.